Up-to-date tradition opener

pwsiegel

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
19
This thread documents some of my recent attempts to get up-to-speed in science victories. From the responses of others it appears likely that I am doing something wrong in the first 100 - 150 turns, and I have been unable to figure out exactly what just by reading guides and watching videos.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the guides for tradition based openings appear to be out of date. For instance, many people cite this guide, though it appears to be flawed in at least two crucial ways. First, the bulk of it was written at a time when one could adopt legalism as the third social policy, and I suspect the fact that it is now at best the fourth social policy has some more serious consequences than the update at the beginning of the guide suggests. Second, it seems that one must send the first one or two food caravans to the capital in order to achieve good results, contrary to the recommendations of the guide. (There may be other problems as well, but it has a lot of good advice overall - it single-handedly boosted my game from Prince level to Emporer/Immortal.)

So my question is: can anyone point to a guide or video or post or set of posts which contains the latest thinking on tradition-based openings? I would prefer information oriented towards peaceful, tall openings.
 
Sorry, I meant "second" and "third" instead of "third" and "fourth" when referring to how quickly one can unlock legalism.
 
It's really not complicated. Pick a decent Pangea map first. Or give a go to the current Russia DCL28 to compare times.

Start:
Cap: Scout scout monument (scout) (shrine) Settler x2 or x3

Make two scout and find the AI while finding ruins. Try to steal workers. If you play a low difficulty or if you cannot steal workers consider replacing one of the scout by a worker.
All this should lead you to size 3. At that point you can make settlers after identifying good spots. Settle the most critical or farthest city first, try to bring one worker per city.

Around time 20-25 is a good time to grab a city state worker. Try to get it from an uninteresting CS and on a spot allowing more steals. Your warrior should defend after the initial exploration against barbarrian. You can use gold if you have plenty to rush an archer for defense and future barbarian camp cleaning. Try to identify cultural CS camps and achieve their quest first.

Either do 2 cities if capital is average or 3 if it's very good with strong production.

In first city make a granary first. The other two cities are a little more tricky. You must judge when you can make the library so that the first and third come approximately in the same time. It will depend on chops, bonus ressources and gold. I suggest rushing a granary rather than a library if it will still give you the libraries simultaneously. Exemple from DCL28 with russia:
Cap Scout scout Monument scout shrine settler x3 + rush archer
City 1 granary library
City 2 with lake victoria library
City 3 library + rushed granary

After the settlers do:
Cap: granary (archer) caravan (caravan) library
Once the expansions have finished the library and granary you can make a worker or the second caravan or maybe the oracle.

After the cap library it should be time for the NC.

Tech order should be about getting Pottery, AH and BW before settling and getting enough luxuries to stay positive and then straight to wirting and philosophy. Directly exchanging for AI doubles is of great help.
 
Browd's new Tradition article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=541054) should be up to date with the new BNW patch.

For myself, the only difference in game play I made for the full Tradition policy after that patch was to hand build a monument in my capital if I didn't pop a cultural ruin.
 
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